Empowering users with Microsoft / Office 365

#Microsoft365 #Office365 #MSTechSummit #MSForms #MSFlow #SharePoint I was fortunate to present at and attend the Microsoft Tech Summit in Cape Town this week. Typical to my nature, business cards and ‘talking shop’ was the last thing on my mind during the conference as I am so community focused. That did not stop a LOT of people asking me for business cards. I so dislike the idea of business cards that I came up with a creative way to solve the exchange of contact details.

DISCLAIMER: I WRITE ARTICLES ABOUT OFFICE / MICROSOFT 365. CONTENT IS ACCURATE AT TIME OF PUBLICATION, HOWEVER UPDATES AND NEW ADDITIONS HAPPEN DAILY WHICH COULD CHANGE THE ACCURACY OR RELEVANCE. PLEASE KEEP THIS IN MIND WHEN USING MY BLOGS AS GUIDELINES.

What do I want to achieve?

When I meet someone that asks for my contact details, I want to capture their details (somewhere), and then send them an automatic response email with my details.

Thanks to everyone on Twitter who added ideas around this and inspired me to write the blog.

SharePoint

First up I created a custom list in SharePoint. I renamed the Title to Name and Surname, then added Email address, telephone, company and twitter handle.

Microsoft Forms

In Forms (https://forms.office.com) I created a form the person could fill in (I can open this for anyone outside of my organization to complete).

Here I added the same questions as in the SharePoint List. Once created, I got the QR code by going to Share > QR Code:

Microsoft Flow

In Flow there is a template I can use to gather results from Forms and publish it to a SharePoint list: “Form processing to email and SharePoint”

The template will ask you to select the Form you created:

You would need to configure the mail (it sends back to the person who asked for your contact details). I picked the email address from the Form the person filled in and created the body of the email:

Now you’ll configure the “Create Item” part where it writes back the Form data to the SharePoint List. This is why it’s important that your columns are the same as it’s easier to pick:

Save your Flow and click on Done.

Here’s an example of the email the new contact will receive. Sure this can be ‘prettyfied’ a bit. As it sends it from PowerApps and Flow – I’d like to investigate how to change the senders address so that it would be mine. Or I’ll have to add my email address to the body of the mail.

Keep in mind that there is some awesome templates on Flow that you can use to interact with your CRM on Dynamics 365 as well.

Now we’re ready to create that Screen Lock image for the phone.

In PowerPoint I created a block the size of my phone screen and added my contact details as well as the QR code to the form. I then saved this image on my phone and set it as my lock screen.

Voila!! Now when people ask me my contact details, I take my phone out and they can scan my lock screen (latest iOS has a QR scanner built in to it’s camera by the way!!!), if they don’t have a QR scanner, they can simply take a photo as I added my email address and twitter handle as text as well.

Once the QR is scanned it will open the Microsoft Form in their web browser asking for Name, email, phone and company. When they submit the Flow will run which automatically sends a mail back to them with my details and logs the contact in SharePoint. Sorted.

Think of expanding this by adding follow up with Flow to remind you to reach out after the conference – it could add it as a task on Planner. Mmmmhhhh, maybe I should do that next.

Purpose of this blog challenge: I will write 365 blogs in 365 days around Microsoft 365. I did a similar challenge with Office 365, blogs can be found here. I won’t just be talking about the new Microsoft 365 subscription model. I will be sharing any news, tips and tricks around Office / Office 365 / Windows / Mobility and Security. And let’s not forget all the great new Apps & services available. A lot of what I’ll share on Office and SharePoint will also be applicable to none “Office 365” versions.